Ride 'em Cowgirl !

When Regina Mayer’s parents dashed her hopes of getting a horse, the resourceful 15-year-old didn’t sit in her room and sulk. Instead, she turned to a cow called Luna to make her riding dreams come true.

Hat Tip: The Blaze.

Man, Shot In Head, Notices Five Years Later

Polish man was drunk at New Year's party, remembered having sore head.

BERLIN — A Polish man living in Germany went about his business for about five years without noticing he had been shot in the head because he was drunk when it happened.
Police in the western city of Bochum said on Tuesday doctors found a .22 caliber bullet in the back of his head after the 35-year-old went to have what he thought was a cyst removed.
Presented with the 5.6mm projectile, the man recalled he had received a blow to the head around midnight at a New Year's party "in 2004 or 2005", but had forgotten about it because he had been "very drunk," a police spokesman said.
"He told us he remembered having a sore head, but that he wasn't really one for going to the doctor," the spokesman said.
The wound later healed around the bullet and it was not until the man decided to have the lump examined due to recurring pains that the discovery was made.
Police said they were not treating the incident as suspicious as the bullet might have got lodged in the man's head when a reveler fired a gun in celebration.
"It may have been a shot fired up in the air which entered his head on the way down," the spokesman said.
The resident of Herne, who has lived in Germany for several years, was expected to be released from hospital later this week after the bullet was removed on Friday, police said.

Merkel Set To Take Over As German Chancellor

If Ms Merkel, 51, does become chancellor it would mark the pinnacle of a remarkable political career. After entering politics in 1990 she has risen through the CDU ranks despite opposition from traditionalists in the male-dominated party. In the 1990s she held ministerial portfolios for the family and the environment and became CDU leader in 2000. She would be Germany's first eastern German and first woman chancellor and the country's youngest post-war leader.

From Wikipedia:

Merkel supports a substantial reform agenda concerning Germany's economic and social system. Merkel is considered to be more pro-free market (and pro-deregulation) than her own party (the CDU); she has advocated changes to German labour law, specifically, removing barriers to firing employees and increasing the allowed number of work hours in a week, arguing that current laws make the country less competitive because companies cannot easily control labour costs at times when business is slow.

Merkel believes there should be a strong transatlantic partnership and German-American friendship. In the spring of 2003, defying strong public opposition, Merkel came out in favor of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, describing it as "unavoidable" and accusing Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of reactionary anti-Americanism. This led some critics to characterize her as an American lackey.

She opposes Turkish EU membership and favours a "privileged partnership", instead. In doing so, she is seen as being in unison with an overwhelming majority of Germans who reject Turkish membership in the European Union, particularly due to fears that large waves of immigration may impose an unbearable burden on Germany and that there would be too much Islamist influence within the EU.

She believes that the existing nuclear power stations should be phased out less quickly than advocated by the current government.

This is a good thing.

Schroeder, Merkel Fail To Reach A Deal

It looks like Germany will be paralyzed for the foreseeable future.

I Guess Democrats Are The Same In Every Country

Germany's Schroeder Refuses To Concede

Gerhard Schroeder, written off as a lame duck a few weeks ago, finished stronger than expected and refused to concede defeat, saying he could still theoretically remain in power if talks with other parties were successful.

But Merkel claimed her party received a mandate from voters to form a new coalition government to carry out her plan to mend frayed ties with the United States. "What is important now is to form a stable government for the people in Germany, and we ... quite clearly have the mandate to do that," she said.

Both Schroeder and Merkel said they would talk to all parties except the new Left Party, a combination of ex-communists and renegade Social Democrats.

Well, at least they have the good sense to ignore the fringe left, unlike here where they're elevated to the status of demi-gods by our press.